


After The Credits Roll

by loves_books



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: A brief look at what happened next for some of the minor characters.





	1. Nova Rose - Life Born Of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 'Women of The Morse Universe' challenge, to a wonderful prompt from Perclexed.
> 
> Huge thanks to Willowbrooke for being both beta and cheerleader.

Given how small the very heart of Oxford was, she’d always been surprised that they hadn’t crossed paths more often.

She saw them in the street from time to time, always well-suited and marching in perfect step, often either heading into one of the colleges or coming out of the Bodleian. Sometimes they held coffees, sometimes paperwork, and one time they had a sword, quite randomly, and she was almost glad she didn’t have the opportunity to ask why, though she was certainly curious.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy of Will and Zoe, she only ever spied them in each other’s company, but as the years passed by, she saw Bertie on occasion with a shorter bubbly blonde – a girlfriend, quite obviously, at least to her observant eyes. She had also seen James from time to time with various younger, suited individuals trailing behind him, usually brandishing notebooks or tablet computers.

Two of those new ‘suits’ didn’t last long, but the third seemed to stick around, a woman close to James’s age with beautiful skin and lovely curly brown hair. It wasn’t until she found herself cross-examining the newly-promoted Detective Inspector Hathaway in court that her suspicions – underlings, rather than friends or dates – were confirmed.

Their shared court cases didn’t come up often these days, as she specialised in family law now, and was rarely involved in murder cases, which seemed to remain Bertie and James’s speciality. The few times she did come up against one or both of them, she was always impressed anew by their attention to detail and their refusal to let her fluster them, in spite of her best efforts. They were good witnesses, to say the very least.

They remained professional, of course, and they never actually spoke outside of court, though James did catch her eye one time as he was leaving the courthouse. He offered her a tentative smile and nod, which she returned with a cheeky wink, pleased to see the blush that immediately coloured his cheeks in response.

She was glad they were both okay, most particularly James, whom she still couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for, even after nearly a decade had passed since the terrible events surrounding poor Will’s death. She couldn’t begin to imagine what James had gone through at Zoe’s hands on that night, though she had managed to sweet-talk her way past the nurses at the hospital to check on him very briefly following the fire, when he’d still been in his drugged sleep and on oxygen. 

She didn’t think he knew about that, though, even now.

She prided herself on never looking back, but she was also very careful to never forget. Will McEwan would always be in her heart, as would poor confused Zoe, and she and her partner always made a point of getting together with Conan, Jonjo and a few other friends each year around the anniversary of their deaths. 

James and Bertie had been a key part of it all, of course, but they had been, and still remained, separate at the very same time. She always smiled at the memory of seeing them together at the pride march that day, so awkwardly out of place yet still fitting together so well.

So she wasn’t surprised, somehow, when she spotted them together in the street one evening, in civvies rather than suits for once, walking even closer together than they normally did. She hadn’t seen the bubbly blonde for some time, and something made her pause, watching and waiting until the moment when Bertie took James’s hand in his own, with James’s face lighting up at the simple contact.

Good, she thought with a smile of her own. It was about time. After all, Will had been right when he’d said that love was never wrong.


	2. Isabel Dawson - The Quality Of Mercy

There were times when she still found she had to physically pinch herself to see if she might be dreaming, and each time she was amazed to realise again that this really was the path her life had taken. She’d been so lucky.

She’d never planned this, but now she truly couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And it all led back to that one spur-of-the-moment decision to audition for a student play, deep in the heart of her second year at Oxford. At the time, it had seemed like a bit of fun before she became completely buried in research for her dissertation.

She still had copies of the reviews, safe and proudly displayed in the scrapbook she’d kept and added to ever since; one particular review, the kindest and most generous, had proclaimed that she ‘breathed new life and new meaning into a speech many of us can recite by heart, one of the most analysed of all times; Isabel Dawson is the true heart and soul of this production’.

Two agents had approached her after that opening night, something she’d kept very quiet at the time as the police investigation into poor Richard’s murder had continued around them all, and as her competitive and jealous cast-mates continued to jostle for position.

Even more surprising had been the invitation to audition for RADA, and she’d gone along more for the experience than out of any true hope of being offered a place. In the end, she had deferred her degree the very moment she was offered a treasured spot; she’d fallen head over heels in love with acting, which had previously been a pleasure though not a passion, and she’d never gone back to finish her degree.

If her dream ever ended then she would return to Oxford with her head held high. She would pick up her dissertation right where she had left off, with no regrets whatsoever, but it didn’t look as if that would be happening any time soon.

She glanced around her tiny dressing room once more, and couldn’t stifle her smile of delight. ‘Tiny’ was actually being quite generous. There was a dressing table, a mirror, a collapsible chair, a clothes rail stuffed with her many costume changes, and a bulky air conditioning unit which ate up the remaining space and sounded like a helicopter taking off even if it did make the air just about breathable.

It was the first time she’d had a dressing room to herself, though, and in the West End that was truly a sign that she’d Made It, with capital letters in her mind if not perhaps in reality.

She’d scattered photos of family and friends around the room and brought in a pink geranium which she’d settled on top of the air conditioner, surrounded tonight by several beautiful ‘good luck’ bouquets. There was one from her parents amongst them, as well as one from her old friend Joe Myers.

They’d stayed in touch over the years, and in fact, he was the only person from that long-ago student production she still spoke to. She crossed paths with Emma Golding from time to time – they always air-kissed politely before moving swiftly away from each other, and she certainly didn’t expect Emma would be there tonight. She’d drifted away from all the others involved, having never really been part of their clique. Joe was currently working on his DPhil, hoping to take a teaching position within the university one day soon, his acting ambitions gladly sacrificed for his academic success.

He wouldn’t be there tonight either, though the flowers had been a lovely surprise, and he’d also sent her the most beautiful letter wishing her all the very best. Her parents would be there, of course, in one of the boxes, and her husband and best friends were all out there waiting to watch her on opening night, with her name in lights outside the theatre beside those of actors who she’d worshipped in her youth. Actors who were now, bizarrely, her co-stars.

Briefly, she wondered if the kind-hearted Inspector Lewis had received her invitation and if he’d been able to make the trip to London. She’d sent it care-of Oxford Police Station, though she worried that he might well have moved on or even retired, nearly ten years after she’d seen him last. Hopefully someone would have been able to forward it to him, perhaps his sharp-eyed sergeant, and he might have remembered her.

It would be wonderful if he had made it. Somehow it would feel right for him to be there for her big opening night, when he had been so kind and so human during what she now realised must have been a particularly difficult time for him personally. She’d seen in the newspapers that they’d arrested and convicted the man who had killed his wife, and worked out from the dates that it must have all happened during that investigation. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he must have felt and had eventually sent him a small bouquet of flowers because she simply had to do something.

She’d left his name at the stage door as well, just in case he actually came. She’d love to see him again, to see how he’d been getting on over the past years.

She heard the five minute call go out over the intercom, and quickly turned her attention to putting the finishing touches to her makeup and running through her opening lines one last time. This was her chance, her ‘big break’, and she felt so ready for it.


	3. Zoe Suskin - The Gift Of Promise

Don’t grow up angry.

It remained the single most useful piece of advice she’d ever been given. 

It would have been so easy to stay angry. Her father dead, her mother living a lie, and her own identity suddenly so different from everything she’d always been told. Don’t grow up angry, he’d said, and for some reason his words had stayed with her over the years, as she finished her BA then her MA, moving on swiftly to complete her DPhil before she’d even turned twenty.

She’d thought, for a time, of going into social work or possibly even policing, to see if she could help someone else in the way he’d helped her, but in the end she’d understood that those options weren’t the right path for her.

It was strange – or perhaps inevitable, given her mother’s mysterious past – that she’d ended up working for the intelligence services. For MI5 specifically, the very organisation that had helped her mother escape from her life as Mary Keane and become the woman who would meet and marry Leon Suskin.

Her mother had told her the whole story when she’d been introduced to her great-aunt for the first time, and it still sounded like a strange work of fiction to her ears even now, decades after Mary had loved Conlan and sworn that she would do anything for him.

It would have been so easy to be angry about it all, but she had chosen instead, after a period of agonised indecision, to simply let it be. What’s past was prologue, after all, and it wasn’t even her own past but her mother’s. The death of her father had obviously been harder to move beyond, and she wished with all her heart that he was still alive, though she knew that he’d be so proud of her, just as the rest of her family were.

Living in London suited her, and she was finally being given responsibilities and put in situations that she actually found challenging. She was working with people who were smarter than her in many different ways, which had been quite a difficult adjustment at first, moving from an environment where she had often been the youngest and brightest in any given room, to a place where she was more often the least knowledgeable and still older than most of the interns around her.

It had all been so liberating and she found that she thrived on the challenges, both professional and personal. She didn’t grow up angry, she grew up sensibly and well – at least, that was her own humble opinion, though others may have disagreed – and she sometimes felt that she should get in contact with him, just to tell him how she was doing and where she had ended up.

They’d only met twice after the conclusion of what she now thought of as the Irish Incident. Once had been outside the courtroom where Conlan Doheny had pleaded guilty to all charges. He’d been there to give evidence if needed, and she’d offered him a self-conscious smile and a timid handshake, and he’d responded with an equally awkward smile and a strange sort of bow.

The second and last time had been a moment of pure randomness. She’d been crossing Broad Street, hurrying to a tutorial, just as he’d stepped out of Blackwell’s and right into her path. For a moment they’d just stared at each other, then they’d smiled, much more naturally this time, and both had said ‘hello’ at the same moment. They’d laughed, slightly awkward once again, before his phone had started to ring and they’d both turned away.

He was well, she knew, and still working for the police. He could’ve done something more with his life and his brilliant brain – she still believed he was equally as clever as she was, if perhaps in slightly different ways – but the work he did was important, and needed a great deal of intelligence, particularly in a city such as Oxford. How many other lives had he influenced for the better, just as he had done for her with a few simple words of advice?

She checked on him from time to time, only slightly bending her MI5 security clearances, and some day in the future, she might actually get back in contact.

But for now, both for him and for the memory of her father, she would keep doing the work she felt she was somehow always destined to do.


	4. Jessica Rattenbury - The Point Of Vanishing

A small part of her was starting to wish she’d given in to her friend’s suggestion of hiring a wedding planner, though a far larger part of her revelled in the opportunity to arrange everything herself for their big day, exactly the way she and Alistair wanted it all to be.

Her mother had offered to help, of course, although it had been said with no real expectation of acceptance and she had politely rejected the offer. They’d been able to reconcile to a certain degree after her mother’s release from prison the previous year, but they would never be close.

The thought didn’t pain her, at least not in the way it used to. There was far too much joy in her life now for her to waste time or energy dwelling on the past.

It was hard not to look back, though, especially sitting there as she was, writing out her wedding invitations. They’d ordered them in from London, to her exact specifications: peach-coloured card with a delicate lace trim, and the most exquisite calligraphy proclaiming the details of their wedding day and chosen venue. All she had left to do was write in the names of their eighty guests, carefully selected after long weeks of deliberation.

Her mother would be invited, naturally, and of course her brother Daniel and his current plus-one, whoever that might be when the day of the wedding finally dawned.

Today was a happy day, as most of her days were now, but it was hard not to look back with some sadness. Thoughts of her distant mother led to thoughts of her much-missed father, who should be the one she asked to walk by her side down the aisle, rather than her brother.

Thoughts of Daniel’s one-time fiancée Hope, who was now a rising star in American politics, and of course, thoughts of her first love, her murdered love, Steven. Or Alex – the two names were interchangeable in her mind, somehow, though the memories of his face and his strong yet gentle arms were always a constant.

Alistair knew about it all, including that awful night at the swimming pool when she’d given in to the rising tide of despair and hopelessness. He had his own history too, his own painful memories, and they’d cried together more than once as they spoke honestly about the people they’d been and the people they wanted to become.

She really had been so lucky to find him, this good, kind, handsome and passionate man who loved her and supported her, and could see beyond her wheelchair and her past. Alistair had, so far, given in to her every wish for the wedding, watching her compile her lists and plans with his beautiful smile and laughing green eyes, delicately reining in her wilder suggestions and adding perfect little tweaks of his own. 

He adored her, and she adored him, and sometimes she could hardly believe how incredibly lucky they’d been to find each other. They’d make each other happy for the rest of their lives, she knew. He’d never once babied her or patronised her just because she used a wheelchair, which mattered more than she’d ever expected it could.

Glancing over at the growing pile of invitations she’d already written, she had to smile when she saw the name currently on top. James Hathaway, the man who had saved her life that terrible night and who had given her the chance to start moving forwards with her life. 

She’d seen him on the evening news once or twice, knew he was still based in Oxford, and also knew he was now a Detective Inspector, rather than the sergeant she’d known briefly back then. It was foolish, perhaps, but she’d felt a sense of pride when she first heard of his promotion – she’d played some small part in that, perhaps, simply by crossing his path while he was working and learning.

He probably wouldn’t even remember her. He must meet so many people in the course of his job, and she wasn’t self-centred enough to think she had been a memorable or special case, not given what she saw on the news every day.

Still, it had felt wrong not to invite him, and Alistair, bless him, had accepted without question that he was someone important to her who should be there to witness their marriage. A witness to the woman she’d become now, stronger and more independent than the child she’d been, confident in her life and work and love.

Hopefully, he would remember her. But if not, it was more important that she remembered him, alongside Steven, Alex and her dad, and all the misery that awful time had brought. She had finally reached a point where she was at peace with her past, and she now looked forwards to what she knew would be the happiest period of her life.


End file.
